


What We Are

by SirMuffinsworth



Series: To Feel Loved [2]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Use, Implied/Referenced Break-Ups, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Sex, Maki isn't an assassin, NOT FOR KAIMAKI OR SAIMATSU ENJOYERS, Ultimate Talents are just jobs or hobbies, learning to love again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-24 10:14:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30070695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SirMuffinsworth/pseuds/SirMuffinsworth
Summary: Shuichi and Maki need to decide what they are.And Kaito and Kaede need to come to terms with their decision.(DIRECT SEQUEL TO "ALONE TOGETHER", READ THAT FIRST)
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Momota Kaito (minor), Akamatsu Kaede/Saihara Shuichi (past), Amami Rantaro/Chabashira Tenko, Harukawa Maki/Momota Kaito (past), Harukawa Maki/Saihara Shuichi
Series: To Feel Loved [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2212344
Comments: 17
Kudos: 25





	What We Are

Statistically speaking, the fact that Kaede Akamatsu made it the whole 20-minute drive back to her apartment complex was a statistical wonder, given that the only parts of the road that she could make out through her teary vision were blurred lights of cars and traffic direction.

As she pulled into her parking lot, she found that, surprisingly, the most prominent emotion she felt was anger. She felt sadness, hurt, yes, but Kaede was angry most of all. She couldn’t quite place who exactly the anger was directed at. Maybe everyone.

She was angry at herself, for being stupid enough to get drunk at a party full of college idiots playing Truth or Dare, without her boyfriend with her to establish his presence to her damned libido.

She was angry at Kaito, for not stopping her when she started to drag him away to his car, or at any other point during that sweaty, drunken haze of a night.

She was angry at Shuichi, for doing the right thing and breaking up with her. How dare he do what she would have done, and what he had every right to do. How dare he.

She was angry at Maki, too, for making out with Shuichi right the hell in front of her, just to spite her. Kaede knew she deserved it, but the girl’s face as she had stolen Shuichi’s lips was seared into her brain even now. She knew the look in Maki’s eyes well, the girl had wanted more. Kaede forced the images that that thought brought forth out of her mind.

Shuichi wouldn’t. Yes, she had hurt him, more than she had ever imagined hurting anyone, let alone the boy that she still loved, even now. Yes, he had broken up with her in a fit of rage that she could hardly call unjust. But still. Shuichi couldn’t have forced his feelings for her out of his mind that quickly, right?

Right?

Kaede shivered as she emerged from her car into the snowy evening air. The cold wasn’t so bad, but combined with the leftover jitters from her encounter with Shuichi and Maki outside Maki’s apartment, the pianist was veritably quaking.

Kaede hesitated as she fished her key out of her pocket. She wanted nothing more than to just curl up in a ball and weep for a while, perhaps forget about the world outside of her blankets that was crashing down around her. But, there may be one more obstacle in her way. 

Tenko. Her roommate. One of her friends (she hoped she still was, at least), but more importantly, a friend of both Shuichi and Maki. Kaede had seen Shuichi blast their dirty laundry in their class’s group chat about an hour earlier, but as her phone kept buzzing in her pocket with her friends’ responses, she had been too terrified to read them. She had already lost Shuichi, she couldn’t bear to process losing the support of anybody else yet.

Kaede whipped her head around to search for signs that Tenko may mercifully not be home. While her eyes didn’t find the girl’s car in the parking lot, what she did see made her heart plummet.

Or rather, who she saw.

“Kaede!” Kaito ran up, panting as he held his sleeve up to protect his face from blowing snow.

“No,” she replied, “No, I am so not dealing with this right now. What the hell are you doing here, Kaito!? Shouldn’t you be down at Maki’s, dealing with the fallout of all this!? What do you want!?”

The man flinched at her accusatory tone huffing and panting as he regained his breath.

“Sorry…” he wheezed, “Ran outta… gas… had to… run here… you seen… Shuichi?”

Kaede winced, before sighing, “Yeah, he… he’s with Maki. At least he was the last I saw him. I went down to Maki’s to try and apologize to her and… well…”

Kaito rubbed his forehead with his palm, “Shit… I wanted to talk to him without having to go back there. I dropped by his dorm room but nobody was home, so…”

“Well, good luck,” Kaede rolled her eyes, opening the door to her apartment, “I didn’t exactly go well for me. Bye.”

“Wait!” the man stuck his arm through the door, preventing the pianist from closing it, “Kaede… are we seriously not gonna talk about this!? Look, I know just as well as you that making things right with them is top priority right now, but we gotta resolve us, too!”

“Resolve ‘us’!?” Kaede exclaimed, taken aback, “Kaito, there is no ‘us’. Last night was a stupid, childish mistake, nothing more! I… I love Shuichi, okay!?”

“Yeah, and I love Maki-roll,” Kaito shook his head, “I didn’t mean that how it sounded. Listen, Kaede, I just wanna be friends, alright? I don’t want anything else from you, but I also don’t want to lose that because of this bullshit along with everything else.”

Kaede swallowed. Kaito was just as guilty as her, so maybe feeling so much animosity towards him was unfounded. Or, at the very least, hypocritical. She had to admit, there was a degree of desperate need for somebody to share in this hell with, and maybe Kaito would do if everybody else turned on them, so…

“Oh, Kaito,” she shook her head, sighing, “What the hell are we going to do?”

He looked down, eyes dark and brooding, “I… don’t know, dammit. Maki and Shuichi… I can’t even imagine myself ever doing something like that to them, and yet here we are…”

“Is there… any hope? Do you think they’ll ever forgive us?”

Kaito thought for a moment, before sighing and replying, “Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. We don’t get a say in that. But if they do… We can’t just forget this ever happened and go back to the way things were. We gotta learn from this crap, you know.”

Kaede nodded sadly, “You’re probably right. Knowing that I… I can do something like that… it’s not something I like learning about myself, but maybe it’s… ugh. I just… hope Shuichi knows that that isn’t all I am.”

“If he doesn’t think that now, he will eventually, I’m sure of it,” Kaito offered her a weak smile, “They both have ever right to be angry, but the year we spent together has to still mean something to them, right?”

Kaede felt her breath catch in her throat. Did she tell him about what she had witnessed? What Maki and Shuichi had done? All it would do was add insult to injury, but… well, if she wanted to make being honest more of a habit, then…

“Actually, Kaito… something happened when I ran into them at Maki’s,” she murmured.

The man furrowed his brow, noting her somber tone, “What is it?”

“Well, I was… trying to apologize, but the words weren’t there, and Shuichi… I’ve never seen him so… inanimate. Maki though, she was angry. Like, really, really angry. Angry enough to…”

Kaede swallowed roughly, forcing the tears down as the memory was called back in front of her vision.

“Angry enough to kiss him in front of me,” she finished, voice strained, “She… she wanted to hurt me, and she succeeded, but---”

“Okay, anything else?”

Kaede blinked, shocked, “W-what!? Anything else!? N-no, she just kissed him…”

Kaito sighed, “Well, that’s not as bad as it could be, right? I mean… after what we did… I don’t know if we really have room to be upset about a revenge kiss.”

He was right. God fucking damn it all to hell, but he was right. Still though, despite everything she had done to prompt it, the sight of Maki’s tongue roaming Shuichi’s mouth and stealing away the sweetness that Kaede knew so well… it ripped open a void in her stomach that she knew she would never quite fill.

“Kaito, I---”

“OH, TO HELL WITH THIS!” 

Kaede and Kaito both whipped around in the open doorway to find the headlights of a turquoise green Mercedes-Benz pulling into an empty parking spot nearby. Given the face of the girl waving a fist at them poking out the passenger window, and the fact that the car itself was unmistakable, they both instantly knew they were in for it.

“You two will NOT be continuing your sinful indulgences under MY ROOF!” Tenko Chabashira exclaimed as she hopped out of the car, fuming. She strode over in an aikido stance, enraged gaze flitting between the two of them as they were now painfully aware of how close together they were standing.

“T-that’s wrong!” Kaede exclaimed, taking a step away from Kaito, “That wasn’t what we were doing! We were just talking!”

“You gotta realize how that sounds at this point,” the driver of the car stepped out, revealing Rantaro Amami, shaking his head like a disappointed parent, “What, were you two ‘just talking’ last night, too?”

Whatever comeback Kaito had geared up to respond to that with, it died in his throat at Rantaro’s gaze. The green-haired boy was as level-headed as ever, in stark contrast to the positively seething aikido master beside him, but there was something distinctly sinister in his lime eyes.

“Look, guys…” Kaede felt a twinge of sadness at two of her closer friends observing her with such hostility, “...We know that we fucked up, okay? It’s… not something we expect to be forgiven for… but I promise, all we want is to make things right. With you all, and especially with Shuichi and Maki.”

“Uh-huh,” Rantaro deadpanned, clearly not buying it.

“It’s true!” Kaito exclaimed, “Look, guys… whatever way we were seeing each other last night, it was only because of the alcohol! We’re just friends, really!”

Tenko fumed, “UGH! As if a MALE like you could EVER unsee what you must have seen! ADMIT IT, DEGENERATE! You came here for SECONDS, DIDN’T YOU!?”

Kaito just took at step back, nervousness etched across his face. Tenko had always had an aversion to men, this was not news, but the girl had abandoned her usual casual standoffishness for outright hostility. She had clearly sunk into an offensive stance, ready to pounce if given any slight reason to.

“It’s bad practice to talk at people instead of to them, Tenko,” Rantaro sighed, “Let him speak, if only so that we can expose him if he is actually lying.”

Tenko’s gaze flitted up to the boy, softening slightly, before she sighed and folded her arms, “Fine. But make it quick! Kirumi is expecting us to join her in consoling our friends that you two spurned soon!”

“Alright, sheesh!” Kaito exclaimed, “Guys… you know us, right? You know that we would never---”

“Do we?” Rantaro asked with a raised eyebrow.

“YES!” Kaito cried, “Of course you do! We went to high school together, man! I love Maki-roll, and Kaede loves Shuichi! Last night was just… a damned mistake, okay!? Never shoulda happened!”

“He’s right,” Kaede added, “We… we can’t apologize enough for what we’ve done. Both for breaking their hearts and… for letting you all down.”

“Well, you’re right about that!” Tenko snapped, “I expected much more from you, Kaede! Kaito, I admit I could be more surprised, but you!?”

Kaito’s indignant reply was nipped yet again by a silencing glare from Rantaro.

“I… I don’t know what to tell you, Tenko,” Kaede shook her head, forcing the tears in her eyes not to fall just yet, “I… I never wanted this. I never wanted any of this! I… I’m just so sorry for everything. We didn’t do it out of anything bad towards Shuichi or Maki, okay!? We… we just weren’t thinking straight, and then…”

“It just happened,” Kaito finished with a rueful sigh.

“I’ll tell you what you can do,” Rantaro’s even tone was chilling, “You can stay the hell away from them. For a good while. You can apologize when they’re healed enough to actually consider accepting it. Until then, trying to force anything out of them will only hurt them more.”

“But if we don’t talk to them, how are we supposed to---”

“Supposed to make things right?” the boy asked, “How are you supposed to fix things? You don’t. You two are right, you fucked up hard. You aren’t getting them back. You don’t deserve it.”

That was enough to finally make Kaede’s shaking knees buckle, sending her to the floor. In truth, Rantaro’s words were hardly unexpected, as she had been saying them to herself in the back of her head all day. But to have it so plainly and firmly laid out in front of her like that… Kaede could no longer hold the tears back. 

“Aw, dammit, you made her cry, man!” Kaito raged at Rantaro, “Are you fuckin’ happy with yourself now!?”

“Yes, I am.”

Kaito balked. That was not the answer he had been expecting at all.

Rantaro’s gaze was icy and menacing, not fitting his even face at all, as it swept across both Kaede and Kaito’s faces. It was at that very moment that Kaede remembered how many times in the years she had known him that Rantaro’s heart had been torn to pieces by girls who just wanted him for his looks and money. He was not going to just up and forgive them for something like this easily, especially since he was pretty close to both Shuichi and Maki.

Any small hope of assistance was shattered when Tenko’s phone buzzed in her jacket pocket, diverting her attention from the tense scene around her.

“It’s Kirumi, probably wondering where we are,” the girl sighed and walked away a few paces to answer it.

“Rantaro…” Kaede tried.

“Save it,” the boy shrugged, “Save it for somebody who gives a shit. Frankly, while drama usually isn’t something I’m fond of, you two deserve everything you’re getting. What you did to Shuichi and Maki makes me sick.”

Somehow, the calmness in his voice made it cut deeper than it would have if he had screamed it in their faces. It was like he was expressing his disgust at them as just as immutable a fact as the sky being blue.

After a few seconds of uncomfortable, ashamed silence, Tenko returned with a strange expression on her face.

“We should hurry over there, right?” Rantaro asked.

“Actually…” Tenko replied in a shaky tone, “No, Kirumi said that they weren’t answering the door.”

“They weren’t there?”

“Oh, um… they were there, alright. Kirumi could hear them through the walls, and I could, uhm… hear them over the phone, too.”

Rantaro seemed to get it before either of the other two, his right eyebrow raising and his lips curling into a satisfied smirk.

“What?” Kaito asked, “The fuck are you guys in on?”

“Sheesh, male, do not make me spell it out for you, you’re almost twenty years old,” Tenko scoffed.

Oh.

Now Kaede got it.

“WHAT!?” she exclaimed, falling back onto her forearms from her kneeling position, “N-no! T-that’s… that’s not t-true! S-Shuichi w-wouldn’t… he c-couldn’t!”

Kaito didn’t really say anything coherent, he just covered his mouth with his hands and rambled a string of profanity that was barely audible.

“Why not? You did,” Rantaro shrugged again, “Guess they just wanted to get even.”

The kiss in the hallway. Maki’s expression. Shuichi’s deadpan dismissal of Kaede. The fact that both of them were together at Maki’s apartment. 

The void in Kaede’s stomach widened enough to swallow her whole. 

Kaede didn’t register Kaito staggering off into the snow, headed who-knows-where. She didn’t register Tenko bashfully offering Rantaro to stay over for the night. She didn’t register the walk back to her room, the lights flicking off, or the blankets that she threw over her head as she bawled. 

Kaede was only able to process again at around midnight, when Tenko must have womanned-up and fetched Rantaro from where he had been sleeping on the couch. 

The sounds that Kaede heard through the wall was only a painful reminder of both what she had done, and how she had been punished for it.

Shuichi was lost to her, and that undeniable truth was finally sinking in.

~~~~~~~~~~

Maki awoke to the pleasant sensation of warm breath on her neck and sunlight streaming through the wind-blown curtains. Her back was nuzzled up against a soft form, and she could feel an arm that wasn’t hers wrapped protectively around her very naked stomach.

It took her about ten seconds of confusion until she remembered the events of the prior day, and by extension, night.

“Oh god,” she sighed softly, “Not a dream, then.”

“No…” Shuichi grumbled, “Is that a bad thing?”

Maki lurched forwards in surprise and stood sharply upwards, realizing too late that the blankets, the only things covering her at the time, would not be standing up with her.

“Y-you’re awake!?” she exclaimed, instinctively curling her arms against herself.

“Yeah…” the raven-haired boy sat up and yawned, wiping sleep from his eyes, “I’ve been awake for about half an hour, I was just comfy…”

Maki gulped, heat beginning to rise in her face. Right. Kaito and Kaede had happened, and then Shuichi and her had… shared the couch, to put it gently. She supposed that she didn’t really need to cover herself in that case, but since her emotions weren’t nearly as volatile or fresh as they had been the prior night, seeing Shuichi’s bare and scratched up chest still felt like a forbidden fruit.

“Did… I do that?” she wondered silently as her gaze lingered on the tired boy’s chest, taking in the red scratchmarks that littered the pale skin there, “Last night is such a blur, I don’t even remember…”

Shuichi had now gotten enough of the tiredness out of his eyes to see her face clearly, and he sighed, “Well. I guess… does this mean our little fantasy is over?”

Maki tensed for a second as more memories came flashing back. Not the act itself, but what they had done, or rather said, immediately beforehand.

“I said I had feelings for him…” she thought, “Did I mean that? Did I just want to hurt Kaede and Kaito, or---”

“Maki?”

Maki whipped her gaze back up to Shuichi’s, and last night’s emotions came rushing as she met his grey eyes.

“It doesn’t have to be over…” she murmured, “...I mean, if you want it to be, I get it…”

“I never said that,” Shuichi smiled, “I was just… a little worried. I meant what I said last night, Maki, if there really is something between us, I’m willing to explore it.”

Maki surprised herself somewhat by breathing a sigh of relief. What even was this? She wasn’t in love with Shuichi, she knew that, but she also couldn’t say she just wanted to be friends with him anymore. Kaito… Kaito still hurt, even now. Maki shuddered at the thought of returning to the bedroom that she had shared with him so many times, and she just hoped to high hell that she had made good about burning everything physical that would remind her of him. Still though, Shuichi was here… and she liked that.

“What time is it?” she asked, looking around for the jeans she had her phone in.

“Not sure,” the boy replied, squinting against the sunlight, “I’d say maybe late morning? We slept for a while…”

“Well… we were pretty exhausted, after…” Maki’s blush prevented her from finishing her sentence.

Shuichi standing up and brushing the blankets away did not exactly help her blush, but oh well.

“Ah…” Shuichi’s face flushed just as hard as he looked downwards at himself, finding them to be in similar situations, “S-sorry…”

“D-Don’t apologize, just… here!” Maki picked up the pair of boxers that had somehow ended up behind the tv and threw them at him, stifling a smirk when they hit him in the face.

The pair quickly got dressed, finding all of their garments strewn about the floor. Maki excavated her phone and flicked it on, finding the time to be 10:42 AM.

“Shuichi, what day is it?” she asked.

“Uh… tuesday, I think?”

“Don’t you have a class in, like, twenty minutes?” she asked, showing him the time.

Shuichi’s expression morphed from confusion to realization to horror in the span of two seconds.

“Oh, fuck,” he said weakly.

“I don’t suppose you could just miss it?” she asked.

“Literally any other class, I could,” Shuichi gulped, “But that class docks 2 percent off my final grade for every session I miss, I uh… I gotta go.”

Shuichi hesitated, and Maki blinked at him, confused.

“What, are you waiting for my permission? Go! You’re gonna be late!”

“Uhm, but…” Shuichi murmured, taking a hesitant step closer, “Are you going to be okay here by yourself? I mean, I don’t really like the thought of just leaving at the drop of a hat like this, especially not after…”

Maki gulped, realizing that she didn’t really like the thought of being alone in her head either. But Shuichi wasn’t the only one with classes that day, she had biology at 1:30 and a seminar at 3.

“Tell you what,” she eventually sighed, “I’m finished for the day at 4:30, how about you?”

Shuichi thought for a moment, “My last class is done at 4. Why?”

“How about…” Maki took a step forwards and swung her arms around Shuichi’s neck, “I’ll come to your dorm room after my classes. Wait for me there, okay? After some time apart, and maybe some time to think… we’ll figure out whatever this is between us. Okay?”

“...alright, Maki,” Shuichi nodded, a warm little smirk curling his lip upwards, “See you then, okay?”

“Okay. One more thing…”

Maki had had sex with this boy the prior night, so why exactly her heart fluttered so much even as she leaned upwards to give him a simple peck on the mouth was beyond her, but Shuichi was already out the door by the time she even thought to question it.

As the door began to swing shut, Maki noticed a small note that neither she nor Shuichi had seen, which looked like it had been slid under the door. It was on pink paper, in elegant handwriting, and the lettering alone told Maki who it was from.

\-----  
Maki and Shuichi,

I cannot fathom what you two must be going through right now, and I truly hope the solace you have found is one that you will not take to an unhealthy extent. Please know that we, your classmates and friends, stand by you in this time, and you can always contact me if you ever need anything. 

KT  
\-----

“Kirumi…” she murmured, realizing that her silver-haired friend had probably overheard her and Shuichi the previous night, given the fact that she clearly knew that Shuichi was there with her. Maki did not like that thought at all, and she pushed it away before the embarrassment took hold.

Breakfast was not a complex affair for her that day. A simple bowl of cereal and a banana was enough to get her through just about anything, even the pit in her stomach that was slowly returning now that Shuichi was out of sight.

“I’ll go for a walk,” she decided, throwing on a light jacket, “I should clear my head and process things a bit. I did say that we’d decide what exactly is going on between me and Shuichi later today, I should at least give some thought about what I want…”

Maki made it about half a street away from her apartment complex, the brisk February air settling into her skin and making her feel ever so slightly better, when she literally bumped into one of the two people that made her feel infinitely worse.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she growled, hunching her shoulders both in exasperation and hostility as the person she had bumped into only now seemed to register where they were, and who was speaking to them.

“M-Ma...ki…?” Kaede murmured, eyes suddenly going wide with shock as she realized the situation she was now in.

“I recall telling you to get lost,” Maki’s hand instinctively began reaching for her inner jacket pocket, where she kept a butterfly knife in case of emergencies.

“I was just going for a walk!” the pianist backed up a few steps, “I… I didn’t think I was going to run into you!”

“Don’t try to sell me that bullshit. You’re literally on my street, walking towards my fucking building.”

Kaede’s jaw dropped in horror, looking down the street and realizing that it was true. Was she really that oblivious of where she was going? Did she just end up walking that direction unconsciously? Maki wasn’t sure, and frankly didn’t care.

“I… I didn’t mean… I’m not supposed to…” the pianist stammered, her gaze falling back on Maki’s, which she returned menacingly.

“Ugh, whatever, just leave me and Shuichi alone,” Maki muttered, taking her hand away from her knife, as she decided that second-degree murder in a daylit street wouldn’t solve anything, regardless of how good it might feel. The girl turned to leave, only to feel rage spark within her once more as she was called after.

“W-wait! Maki, I… I have a question for you…”

“WHAT!?” she exclaimed, whipping around to glare at the blonde, who staggered backwards like the very face of death had just been shown to her. It took Kaede a few moments to collect herself, actually, which gave Maki a sinister sense of twisted pride.

“I-it’s j-just… I h-heard from T-Tenko, who heard from K-Kirumi… D-did S-Shuichi… D-Did you…”

Maki felt her mouth split into a wild grin as she realized what Kaede was insinuating. After all, pertaining to her and Shuichi, there was only one piece of information that Kirumi would have had that Kaede hadn’t. Still though, she let the blonde finish, if only because she enjoyed the sound of her shaking voice.

“D-Did you t-two… uhm… y-you know… d-did you?”

“Did we what, Kaede?” it took everything Maki had to keep her tone light and conversational, mocking the girl before her.

“D-did you… uhm…”

“Did we… fuck?” she finished, adding a sinister gleam to her eye and a forceful edge to the last word.

Kaede just blanched, beginning to shake in more places than just her voice.

“Remind me how that’s any of your business? You took my boyfriend’s dick on the side, remember? What does what Shuichi does with his matter to you?”

Maki knew she could be merciful. She could lie, she could even just keep it ambiguous.

She could, but she didn’t want to.

“But yeah,” she finished, teeth flashing in an evil grin, “We fucked. Happy?”

Kaede’s knees hit the pavement, followed quickly by her hands, as the blonde’s gaze tore away from Maki’s. The girl appeared to be sobbing, but no tears were hitting the road beneath her. Maki initially thought that perhaps she was just faking crying to appear as the victim, since they were out in public, but then she realized that the much more likely reason was that there simply weren’t tears left to shed in the girl’s body.

For the first time, in perhaps the whole time they had known each other, Maki took a good, careful look at Kaede. Her hair was a mess, with several cowlicks sticking up all over. Her clothing was descheveled, seemingly the exact same outfit from the previous night, and there were massive black bags under her eyes. Her cheeks were caked and salty, puffed red and swollen from the empty sobs that racked the girl’s body even now. Clearly, better days had been seen by the pathetic creature that Maki now found herself confronted with.

“Does she… actually feel bad?” Maki found herself wondering, “After everything she’s done… after what she did to Shuichi and I… after betraying our trust like that… what the hell is going on here!?”

Maki noticed Kaede’s lips moving, and could hear a strained whimper coming out, but no discernible words.

“If you’re gonna talk, then talk,” she said, “I could just leave you here.”

“I know…” the pianist croaked between gasps and sobs, “I… I don’t e-expect you to a-apologize… it’s m-my fault, I k-know… I g-guess I j-just thought Shuichi w-wouldn’t…”

“Wouldn’t what? Say yes to me?” Maki spat, “Insulting me is not helping your case, I hope you realize.”

“N-no… not you… I’m s-sorry… I just… he was… well… not anymore, I guess…”

Kaede sniffled slightly, before falling silent. Maki knew what word she had wanted to use, but hadn’t had the strength to. She had been trying to work up the courage to say “mine”.

“No,” Maki shook her head, “Not anymore.”

The standing girl just sighed. At that point, she found, whatever twisted pleasure or glee she had taken in the pianist’s despair had faded into nothingness. In fact, being this close to someone who up until recently she had considered a friend, but having good reason to not lend her any comfort, just made Maki frankly uncomfortable.

“You’re right,” Maki found herself saying, “Shuichi was yours. Fully. He was so in love with you it was sickening. You’re the one who fucked that up. You probably could have eventually married him, you know, and he would have been perfectly happy with that. You know why?”

Kaede was silent, eyes trained on the pavement with shame.

“Because Shuichi,” Maki continued, finally giving words to the emotions she found within her chest, “Regardless of social standing or whatever crap, is miles out of your league. And miles out of mine, too. Shuichi is too damn pure and incredible, and you had no idea how lucky you were until you fucked it all up.”

Kaede nodded sadly, her shoulders shaking.

“I don’t know what he thinks of me. Maybe soon, he’ll realize that I’m not good enough for how good he is either, and he and I will just go back to being friends. If that’s what he wants, I’ll accept that. But if I get just as lucky as you were, Kaede… I won’t make the same fuck-up you did. I’ll take good care of him.”

Shakily, Kaede got to her feet. She wasn’t sobbing anymore, the feeble girl just looked exhausted and sad.

“Maki…” the blonde said shakily, “Are you…”

“I’m not in love with him,” Maki shook her head firmly, “But if he wants me to be, I will be. It’s difficult to explain, but that’s where he and I stand right now.”

Kaede nodded, seeming to straighten her posture somewhat and attempt a brave face. It didn’t work, Maki could still see a thousand or so holes in the facade of strength, but she didn’t bother exploiting any of them. She still hated the girl before her, despised her for what she had done, but in some ways, she was thankful for the reason that she hated her.

“Promise me,” Kaede evened out her voice as much as she could, “Promise me… that if you’re what Shuichi really wants, that… you won’t hurt him like I did?”

“It’s not a favour to you specifically, don’t twist things,” Maki scoffed, “But yeah. That’s a promise I can keep.”

The pair stood in silence for a while, absorbing the cold February morning air, before Kaede took a single step, followed by another, a little less shaky, and began to walk away.

“Goodbye, Maki,” she said over her shoulder.

Maki didn’t reply. She just watched stoically until the pianist disappeared behind a line of houses, and then turned around and headed back towards her apartment. She had gotten everything she wanted out of this walk after all.

~~~~~~~~~~

Shuichi groaned as he reached the outside of the dormitory at which he lived. Classes that day had been brutal, because of course, why would it have been an easy day? Why would the universe allow him just that one small kindness?

The boy combed a hand through his messy hair and sighed. He hadn’t had time to stop by his dorm and grab any notebooks or textbooks, so he had been forced to devote everything to memory, and that tactic was already failing him not ten minutes after his last class had ended for the day.

“Maki is coming over soon,” he recalled, “She wanted me to think about us… and what I wanted… but I guess I didn’t really have time to get around to that, with everything else…”

“Yo, Shuichi. We should talk.”

Shuichi froze. That voice, coming from a few feet behind him as he was just about to open the door, sent shocks of renewed anger up his spine. He had somehow managed to forget that Kaito had a room in this very same building up until that point.

Slowly, he turned to meet the goateed former friend of his in the eyes. For once, he couldn’t help but give credit where it was due, Kaito looked actually serious. 

“Do we have to?” he spat, “I have nothing to say to you.”

“Perfect,” Kaito replied, “Then I can do the talking.”

“Didn’t Maki threaten you not to talk to me ever again? I seem to recall something about turning your dick into a sock puppet.”

“You see Maki-roll anywhere around here?”

“Not yet, but we’re meeting at my dorm in about twenty minutes.”

That made Kaito hesitate, before he cleared his throat and continued, “Well then, I guess I’m just gonna have to make this brief. I’m sorry I slept with Kaede. I should never have done that, it was a horrible thing for everybody involved, and that’s on me.”

Shuichi blinked in incredulity, “Do you actually expect me to just take that!? You sound like you’re apologizing for eating my leftovers, asshole! You FUCKED MY GIRLFRIEND!”

Kaito winced, “Yeah, I know, man. I just had to apologize, and I know you aren’t gonna forgive me, and that’s fine. I don’t expect, or even really want, your forgiveness, I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry.”

Shuichi had no idea how to respond to that.

“Also, uh… even if you don’t forgive me, do you think you could forgive Kaede? She’s… really not taking this well.”

“Kaede can go fuck herself, Kaito,” Shuichi scoffed, “She’s just as guilty as you are.”

For the first time that conversation, a damper was finally set into Kaito sails, as he appeared downcast, “What if I, uh… what if I told you that it was all my idea, and she was just too drunk to say no? Would that change anything?”

Shuichi rolled his eyes, “She told me the story. She instigated it, not you, don’t try to feed me that crap. You’re a terrible liar.”

The man nodded with a sigh, “Well, worth a shot. Anyway, about Maki-roll, I---”

“Where is this going?” Shuichi asked, “Get to the point, Kaito, why the hell are you even here?”

The goateed man stiffened, before firming up his voice, “Fine. Maki-roll is never gonna forgive me and I… I’ll eventually be able to accept that. I just wanna make sure that she isn’t making a mistake. I still care about her, and if or not you believe me doesn’t matter.”

Shuichi didn’t answer. In truth, he really did want to believe that his former friend was still the kind person he had known, but he was too full of spite to really be able to pursue that line of thinking.

“Maki-roll… doesn’t really get love, at least not very well,” Kaito sighed, “She didn’t love anybody before me, and since I really fucked that up… you gotta be there for her, alright?”

“As if I need you to tell me that. Maki’s my best friend, Kaito.”

“That’s not all she is to you, and you and I both know it, Shuichi.”

Shuichi sputtered, meeting the resolute gaze before him, speechless.

“How I know isn’t important,” the man sighed, “But I know what happened last night. I’m not mad at you, at least I’m not anymore, but… look, Shuichi, you don’t owe me anything at all, but please just listen to me here. If Maki only wants you because she doesn’t know how else to feel okay, then… you can’t do that to her. Love and shit is already too ruined in her mind for that crap.”

The detective paused. It wasn’t an unfair point, Shuichi himself was worried that was all that Maki wanted out of him, but it felt strange to be getting it from Kaito of all people. Especially after what he had done.

“She’s gonna be here soon,” he shook his head, some of the aggression drained from his voice, “Whatever point you wanna make, make it fast.”

Kaito reached out and tried to clasp Shuichi on the shoulder, but he was dodged. He tried to play it off like he was reaching up to scratch at his head, but it just made for an uncomfortable few moments of silence.

“...fine, it’s just this. Shuichi, if you fall in love with Maki, then you have to LOVE her, got it?”

Shuichi just eyed the man. He wasn’t really sure how, but he understood what was trying to be said, despite it not being put exactly eloquently. That was just Kaito, after all, even now.

“Are we done?” he asked.

“Yeah, we’re done. Oh, and if you fuck up as badly as I did, I’ll kick your ass, read me?”

“Piss off, Kaito,” Shuichi spat, and Kaito obliged.

Disgruntled, the detective made his way back up to his dorm room, ignoring the sinking feeling that caved forth in his gut as he swung the door open. Everything was as he had left it. The last time he had been here, Kaede had ripped his heart from his chest. He could still see the remnants of the little fortress of safety made of blankets that he had cocooned himself in afterwards. He quickly cleaned, making the bed and putting away anything untidy, before stepping back to survey the room.

“That’ll do, I guess,” he muttered.

“What will do?”

“Gah!” Shuichi exclaimed as Maki’s voice sounded from the doorway behind him. The brunette eyed him curiously, holding her schoolbag in one hand and a purse in the other.

“M-Maki!” he said as he calmed himself down, “You startled me, heh… how long have you been there?”

“Only about thirty seconds or so?” she replied, stepping in and setting her bags down on his bed. Shuichi slowly closed the door behind her, sucking in air in preparation.

Maki settled herself down on the corner of the bed, fiddling with one of her braids. Shuichi felt the corners of his mouth tilt upwards as he recognized the nervous tick. 

“So,” he said.

“So,” she nodded.

Shuichi gulped. How did he want to start this? Should he even be the one to start it? Should he let Maki go first? Kaito’s words were still fresh in his mind before Maki made up his mind for him.

“Do you still love Kaede?”

Oh, right. Well, this had worked for them the previous night, after all.

“No, no I don’t,” he replied.

Maki nodded, “Do you love me?”

“Not yet, I don’t think so.”

“Do you want me to love you?”

Shuichi froze. Not the question he had been anticipating, and what a curveball at that.

Still though, he found he had an answer for it.

“Yes. I want that.”

Maki gave him a satisfied smile, nodding. She fell silent, and Shuichi realized that it was his turn.

“Well… do you still love Kaito?”

“No.”

“Do you love me?”

“No, but I probably will.”

Shuichi smiled, before taking a moment to think about his final question.

“What’s the date today?”

Maki blinked, before checking her phone, “Um… February sixteenth, why?”

“Well, don’t most couples like to keep track of their anniversaries?”

The girl just stared at him from the corner of his bed for a few seconds, her cheeks met with a dusting of pink, before her mouth split into a bashful smile.

“S-sheesh…” she murmured, “I mean, alright, if you wanna be that corny about it…”

Shuichi laughed then. Really, really laughed. In just that brief moment, he forgot all about how or why they were here together, and all he cared about was the who. He sat down next to her, the bed creaking under his weight, and his smile only broadened as she rested her head on his shoulder.

“Just to be clear, you… really want this?” Maki whispered, “You really want to give us a real shot?”

“I thought I’d be the one asking you that,” he replied, setting a gentle hand over one of hers in her lap, “Yeah. I want to see how far we can go. Maybe all the way, if we’re lucky.”

“Well, me too, but don’t count the chickens yet.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Maki kissed him then, and for the first time, Shuichi didn’t compare it to what he had known in the past. He didn’t think to, or even need to. It was enough just the way it was.

In fact, Shuichi found that Maki tasted like strawberry milkshake that day. He would later find out that she had specifically bought and drank one before arriving, despite hating them, specifically for that purpose, and it would be at that exact moment that he would decide that he loved her.

Maki, on the other hand, knew long before that, not that she was about to tell him.

-END-

**Author's Note:**

> Ha, y'all thought I could leave a story finished without fluff. Have you learned nothing.
> 
> TBH though, there was a scrapped early outline that had this story going over a world in which their little rebound got Maki pregnant, and it would be a much angstier abortion story (still probably ending with them together) but have an overall much more somber tone.
> 
> But, well, whoopsie, the trash can got one piece of paper fuller. I wonder why.
> 
> Also, sorry, Kaito and Kaede, but I don't ship your ships and it shows.


End file.
